Alumnus competes on CBS’s ‘Amazing Race’ Contact: Michele Leiberman 2/19/06 Barry and Fran Lazarus (left), contestants on the upcoming season of “The Amazing Race,” will no doubt have their own cheering section in the McDaniel community when the first show of the ninth season airs Feb. 28 on CBS. Lazarus, a retired urologist and graduate in the class of '64, and his wife dove from an airplane, bungee-jumped, and scaled buildings in their attempt to beat 11 other couples in the 30-day race across five continents. Although the race is finished, the results are top secret until revealed on television in the course of the season.

At every destination, each team competes in a series of challenges – some mental and some physical – and only when each task has been completed do they learn their next destination. Teams that are farthest behind are eliminated, and the first team to arrive at the final destination wins $1 million.

George Gebelein, 1964 class president, takes some responsibility for bringing the Lazarus’ together. The couple had their first date at his house in the early '60s, and they remain friends four decades later.

“The fact that Barry and Fran are going to be on this show is awesome for me and may be the pinnacle of the fantastic adventures Barry and Fran have experienced during their lifetime,” Gebelein says. “I am excited and so proud of them. The suspense is unbearable.”

The couple, now living in Colorado, is keeping details of the show mum for now, but their friend Marsha Cooper says they were thrilled to be picked for “The Amazing Race.”

“Competing with so many younger people was challenging in the physical viewpoint, but the mechanics were probably easier for them,” Cooper says. “They were very excited and called it a life-altering experience. They talk about the friends they have made and say they’ve been surprised in ways they didn't expect.”

SILVERTHORNE - Silverthorne residents Fran and Barry Lazarus have climbed all 54 of Colorado's 14ers together, traveled to more than 45 countries with each other and have competed twice in the grueling Triple Bypass road bike race from Evergreen to Avon.

Now the couple, who've been married for 40 years, will see if they can add reality television show winners and millionaires to their list of life's accomplishments.

The Lazaruses are one of 11 teams of two who will vie for $1 million in the upcoming season of CBS' popular "The Amazing Race" reality TV show.

The adventure series pits the teams against each other as they travel to exotic locations across five continents to complete unknown tasks.

At Fran's age of 61 and Barry's at 63, they are the oldest competitors on the show, but in an interview posted on CBS' web site, Barry dismissed any concerns about the generation gap.

"We bring a new dimension to the older person that's been on the show in the past," he said. "We're competitors. We're not showing up to say, 'Oh, we had a good run, gee we're happy.' We really want to win."

Breckenridge residents Cary and Marsha Cooper, who have been close friends with the Lazaruses since the two couples moved to Summit County separately nearly a decade ago, suggested the parents of two apply to be on the show.

Marsha Cooper said she wasn't surprised to hear they ultimately landed a spot.

"We thought that if anyone in the category of the more mature couple could get into the finals of the show, it would be them," she said.

The other participants include two sisters, a mother-daughter team and several pairs who are either dating or are longtime friends, most of whom are in their 20s and 30s.

But, Cooper believes what the Lazaruses may lack in strength or running speed compared to the younger competitors, they more than make up for in their maturity and familiarity with the travel system.

"They have always prided themselves on being able to buy the cheapest tickets, the fastest routes, the most direct routes," Cooper said. "They have a maturity about travel that other couples, I assume, will not have, and that's a real advantage."

For instance, one contestant has never been outside the United States and another has a fear of flying.

The Lazaruses moved to Summit County from Baltimore eight years ago.

Fran is a retired accountant, and Barry is a retired urologist.

"The Amazing Race" premieres on Feb. 28 on CBS and runs for about 16 weeks, with teams leaving at different points in the broadcast, depending on how they place in races. The Lazaruses are contractually bound against speaking about the details of the show until it is over, or until they lose.

They tried to build a motorcycle. They sifted through more than 1,000 Russian nesting dolls.

Ah, the price of fame.

Barry and Fran Lazarus, ages 63 and 61, respectively, have taken on these and other oddball tasks not just to be in the limelight but also for the chance to win $1 million as contestants on the hit CBS reality show, "The Amazing Race."

While they now call Colorado home, both Mr. and Mrs. Lazarus were born and raised in the Pimlico section of Northwest Baltimore. Mrs. Lazarus graduated from Forest Park High School in 1961, and her husband graduated from Baltimore City College the year before.

What drew the Lazaruses from their comfortable retirement and into a worldwide race of curious stunts all filmed live for deposit into the voracious maw of the monster that is reality-based television?

"We like to do adventure travel and navigation. We never take vacations, only adventures," the couple e-mailed the Baltimore Jewish Times from somewhere in Europe. "This was right up our alley."

For Mr. Lazarus' 60th birthday, they went to India, and they celebrated Mrs. Lazarus' six decades with a trip to China. It almost makes "The Amazing Race" sound tame by comparison, with its stopovers in Russia and Brazil.

Friends in the area say they were not surprised to see the Lazaruses — even at their age — chosen as one of just 11 couples to appear on the show, from a pool of some 18,000 applicants.

"They hike, they bike, they mountain-climb. They wake up wondering which slope they should ski today. I think that was a reason they were picked," said Steve Stadd, a childhood friend who now lives in Cross Keys.

Shooting took place in the fall of 2005. The show airs 10 p.m. on Tuesdays and will end May 16.

Until then the Lazaruses are bound to give only sketchy details of their adventures, so mum's the word.

"It began in Denver, and the first clue was at the Red Rocks Amphitheater. After running up the steps, we were instructed to drive to the airport and fly to Sao Paulo, Brazil. After that, we went to Brotas and then onto Moscow," they wrote in their e-mail.

We know that at some point, they had a choice between cleaning out a Russian trolley or searching for a clue among 1,500 nesting dolls. They couldn't find the trolley park and went for the dolls instead.

In the past, "Amazing Race" teams have staggered across the desert, built log flumes out of felled trees and lassoed Gila monsters. (Yes, you read that right.)

Other contestants this time around include Danielle and Dani, childhood friends whose manifest cleavage keeps the camera captivated. The arrogant and athletic Jeremy and Eric bring attitude to the table.

So what do Barry and Fran bring?

"We believe the race is comprised of brains, physical strength and luck. We bring a bit of all that to the race," they write.

As for being the oldest team on the field? That one is easy: "Age is just a number."

Yeah, Meredith & Gretchen are purdy hard to compare to anyone! They were so awesome in TAR! Love them to pieces! I wish Fran & Berry the best of luck in going far in the game, but I'm not as confident as I was with M n' G.

April 27, 2006--------------------------------------------------------------------------------(CBS) Fran and Barry Lazarus went from one extreme to the other in the episode of "The Amazing Race 9" that aired Wednesday night.

The retired couple from Silverthorne, Colo. won the leg run in the Middle Eastern nation of Oman in the episode that was broadcast the previous week.

But when the five remaining teams ventured to Australia, they pulled up the rear and were shown the door. A taxi that failed to show played a pivotal role.

Fran, a retired accountant, and Barry, a retired physician, have been married 40 years.

"Frat Boys" Eric and Jeremy returned to the lead on the beaches of western Australia.

For details on how it all happened, click here.

It's now down to the final four teams.

Fran and Barry made their final pit stop on The Early Show Thursday, chatting with co-anchor Harry Smith about their experiences in the "Race."

Barry tells CBS News losing was "very frustrating. We are two competitive people. Even though we're old, we love to compete. During the race, we were all business. We were there to win and we thought we would win."

Fran says they don't think their sage worked against them but, "When it came to the sprints, we were at a total disadvantage. I was dragging Barry. The kids ran everywhere and we fast-walked."

She says they "absolutely" thought they could have won, adding, "The key to this race is broken up in thirds. One third is luck, a third physical and a third mental. The physical thing was our only weakness."

The two had been to 45 countries before taking part in the "Race," which Barry says "was much more difficult" than they anticipated. "It was very stressful and emotional. There were major ups and downs every day. It was like riding a yo-yo."

How could they top the race? "By having grandchildren," Barry laughed. "Our two kids both had babies within a six week period back in February. Our son lives in Laos and our daughter in Denmark. So we've been all over the world again in the last few weeks. Lot's of frequent flier miles!"

“You Don’t Have to Quit Living as You Get Older” - An Interview with The Amazing Race 9’s Fran and Barry by Jenn Brasler -- 04/28/2006

Fran and Barry (AKA Frankenberry) were this season’s oldest racers, and they made it all the way to fifth place. Read on to find out what nice thing Fran did for BJ, what was the hardest part of the race for them, and whether the hippies were really serious about their Yield threats.

Fran and Barry didn't need CBS' The Amazing Race (Wednesdays at 8 pm/ET) to add more stamps to their passports. In the 40 years they've been married, the couple — who became the seventh team eliminated — have visited 45 countries, setting foot on almost every continent and in every hemisphere in the world. A 63-year-old retired doctor and a 61-year-old retired accountant with grown children, they also didn't need the money. So why did they run? "It was all about the competition," Barry told TVGuide.com the day after their elimination episode aired. "We weren't just happy to be there. We thought we had a chance to win!" Here's what else they thought of the greatest race on earth. TVGuide.com: You two may be a lot older, but you've also seen the world. Didn't that give you an advantage over the other Racers?Fran: We actually have been to most of the countries, although not the cities. We've been to Italy but not Sicily. We had never been to São Paulo. We had never been to Oman.Barry: One thing that was an advantage for us was that we had driven on the Autobahn in Germany, and we knew that there's no speed limit. Most of the other teams drove what they thought was the speed limit. We actually revved it up. We caught up and passed a lot of teams that way.

TVGuide.com: How fast were you going?Fran: You really want to know?Barry: We were going about 180 kph [112 mph].

TVGuide.com: Whoa. Let's slow it down and go back to Brazil, where you famously walked by the clue box at least three times. How is that possible?Fran: I'd like to say someone was standing in front of it, but I don't know that. [Laughs] Once we walked over the bridge and didn't see it, we started looking everywhere else. Up. Down. In a church. We didn't see the box.Barry: The clue boxes, in general, were not hidden in tricky spots. It was just the stress of the situation and not being as focused as we'd normally be, and we just missed it. [Laughs] No excuses!

TVGuide.com: One of CBS.com's Amazing Race outtakes shows you two in Germany frantically searching for the Mercedes car key, which Barry was holding in his hand.Barry: That was my doing. I've never driven a Mercedes before, and when we got the Mercedes, the key was already in the car. I didn't realize that slab of metal was the key. It looked almost like a credit card.Fran: It's just like a rectangle. It's not cut out like a key, so it looks like half the key is missing.Barry: So I'm thinking the key fell off that piece or maybe it snapped inside of it. That's when I panicked.

TVGuide.com: Fran, you've been sky-diving before, and in the first episode you walked down the outside of a building. How is it that you can do those two things but you're afraid to bungee-jump?Fran: First of all, we both love rappelling. And we sky-dived about 12 years ago in California. The big difference is that there's an instructor on your back who has to open up the parachute — you're not doing anything. [With] bungee, you're on your own, and just the thought of diving 240 feet headfirst with this cord tied to your leg absolutely terrified me.

TVGuide.com: What did you tell yourself in order to be able to step off the bridge?Fran: I closed my eyes, put an imaginary veil over my face and just went. To tell you the truth, I have no clue what happened from there. When I watched it on TV, I looked as terrified as I felt.

TVGuide.com: Barry, was there anything you were afraid to do on the race?Barry: I'm not a water person, so jumping off that platform [in Moscow] was scary — although we practiced swimming and took swimming lessons in the weeks prior to going on the race.

TVGuide.com: You had time to take swimming lessons? How long before the race started did you know you were going to be on the show?Fran: Three weeks. Every other day we swam and lifted weights, and every other day we went on the machines at the rec center. We were prepared physically.

TVGuide.com: Barry, why did you and Lake get into an argument at the airport ticket counter?Barry: We were in fourth place and Lake was in third. We showed up after he did and asked the fellow behind the counter the quickest way to Palermo. He pointed out that in fact there was a connection on Air Italia that got in a half hour before. He also mentioned that the previous team — Lake and Michelle — had not asked that question. He gave them a flight on Lufthansa, which got in a half hour later. As we're getting our tickets, Lake started to move over to see what we were doing. At that point, he was entering our "space," so to speak. Our relationship then sort of deteriorated.

TVGuide.com: Why did you seem surprised to learn you won first place in Oman?Barry: We knew we were in the top two, but when we were heading to the castle, Joseph and Monica were behind us. They peeled off, and we knew there was a shortcut, so we didn't know when we came in if we were first or second. When we were first, we were obviously thrilled.

TVGuide.com: You did well with those maps! I would have followed you.Barry: The other teams did mention that maybe they should just follow us and outsprint us to the end. [Laughs]

TVGuide.com: How was your night inside the "pleasure dome"?Fran: It was a youth hostel, really. Our room had three bunk beds — six guys who were going to be sleeping there. Barry: There was stuff all over the place. A bunch of the guys had been staying there for weeks and using that as a base.Fran: We were actually short one bed. Barry and I just slid into a top bunk, turned sideways and fell asleep. We didn't get up until the alarm went off.Barry: We didn't even move. We were so tired!

TVGuide.com: You gave BJ and Tyler $20. It's a competition. Why did you help?Fran: It is a competition, but BJ and Tyler helped us many times. They got the guy at the ferry to take us to the silversmith to get the next clue. Barry: We followed them to the fountain in Rome. First off, we liked them very much. Secondly, we had a relationship. Thirdly, I really don't think that we felt that we'd be helping them all that much.Fran: They're very resourceful, and they didn't need our $20. Barry: They should have given us the $20 back — they got all that money!

TVGuide.com: True. They made out like bandits on the plane. Were they allowed to tell people you were on The Amazing Race?Both: Absolutely not!Fran: They went up to business and first class. In their personable way, they told [people] that their belongings and money were stolen and whatever they could give would be fine. And people gave!

TVGuide.com: Which team would you travel with if given the opportunity in the future?Fran: You mean who will travel with us?Barry: We'd certainly let "the hippies" travel with us, and I think MoJo — we like them, they're a nice young couple. They come off a bit strange on TV, but actually they're quite pleasant and Monica's quite brilliant and smart, as well as being beautiful.

TVGuide.com: Once you were eliminated, what was the first thing you did?Fran: We washed our shoes out. They were full of sand.Barry: Then we had a beer.

SUMMIT COUNTY — For five weeks late last fall, locals Barry and Fran Lazarus traded in their laid-back Summit County lifestyle for a fast-paced competition that led them half way around the world.

The couple, who have been married for 40 years and live north of Silverthorne, vied against 11 other teams for a $1 million prize in CBS' Emmy winning adventure reality show "The Amazing Race."

After 17 physically and emotionally taxing days of competition, the Lazaruses were eliminated in Perth, Australia last week, finishing in fifth place overall.

The race, they say, was an experience of a lifetime.

"We loved it," Barry said Monday. "I mean very stressful, no question, but we had a ball."

The race format directs teams from pit stop to pit stop around the world. Between stops, teams must collect clues that assign tasks, such as riding a zipline 300 feet through a valley, bungee jumping off a 240 foot bridge or more mundane assignments like opening hundreds of Russian dolls to find a tiny clue or rifling through 2,400 articles of clothing on a laundry line to locate one of 16 clues.

Teams are provided with a certain amount of money to pay for needs like transportation and food. The last team to make it to the finish line at the end of each leg is typically sent home.

The Lazaruses are in their early 60s, which made them the oldest competitors on the show, but what they may have lacked in speed and endurance, they made up for in map reading and navigation skills.

Those skills helped them pull ahead in Jabreen, Oman, where they became the first retired couple in the show's nine-season history to win a leg of the race.

"... To get down to five teams, all of them are 35 years younger than we are and very athletic, and to knock them off at least once was very special," Barry said.

During the course of the race, Barry and Fran could never be separated by more than 20 feet, and were required to have a two-person camera and sound crew in tow at all times.

They received a 12-hour rest period after each leg of the race, and two 36-hour rest periods in the 17 days. The longest race leg lasted 42 hours.

The Lazaruses applied for the television show in June 2005 by submitting a 15-page application and a 3-minute videotape.

They soon found out they had made the first cut and met with producers in Los Angeles for an interview. In September, they were invited back to Los Angeles for a second 10-day interview process, where they underwent medical examinations, blood tests and psychological testing.

A few days after leaving the city, they got the call that they had been selected.

"We said, 'We got to go to the gym and learn to swim,'" Fran recalled upon hearing they would be participating in the show.

"Our one Achilles heel is that we are not good in the water, and we know there's always something in the water, at least one or two legs," Barry added.

They went to the rec center every day for three weeks before leaving for the show on Nov. 2.

Since they were eliminated from the contest last Wednesday, they've appeared on CBS' "The Early Show," and have been interviewed for newspapers in Baltimore and Connecticut and for a dozen radio shows across the country.

The show, it seems, has launched the couple into somewhat of a celebrity status.

Recently, they flew into Thailand to visit their daughter in nearby Laos.

"We were recognized about a dozen times on the street, in Bangkok, which was really funny," Barry said.

My all time favorite old couple. They were extremely competitive compared to the other oldies.

Yes, they certainly were! They didn't allow themselves to be intimidated by the younger peeps...they just kept forging ahead no matter how difficult the task. They're very positive folks. For their age, they were in excellent physical shape. No wonder since Fran has climbed all of Colorado's 14,000 footers! :woohoo:

Fran, who is 61 years old, is a retired accountant who describes herself as having a positive outlook on life. Fran enjoys skiing, biking, and hiking and has climbed all of Colorado's 54 14ers, which are the Colorado mountain peaks that exceed 14,000 feet. Fran admits that she's running THE AMAZING RACE to show that "old people" can compete just as well as most 25 year olds.

Wow! Awesome!! Kudos to both Fran and Berry for running the Race with all their might and spirit and good sportsmanship! I heart'em!